User story - Real success stories

Experience how our customers around the world use FELDER machines in practice. From small craft businesses to industrial applications - discover inspiring success stories full of innovation, passion and precision.

"We can do everything!"

Cut-string, housed, or sometimes completely extraordinary stairs. The NHG joinery in the Frisian town of Zetel, with only six employees, has geared itself towards this mix and manages it with a relaxed confidence.

Andreas Gurol stands at his 5-axis CNC "Profit H350" from Format4, acquired in 2017, and is producing an open string, double quarter-turn oak staircase. For this staircase, he first visited the customer, took measurements on-site with a folding rule and spirit level, then designed it with the Compass stair software, created a quote, and awaited order approval. Now all parts lists and CNC programs are ready on the workshop network. Previously, he would have also planed and glued-up the wood for the treads, stringers, and newel posts.

The machines for this are still available but are now only used occasionally. Due to the shortage of skilled workers, the master joiner usually buys in glulam panels. The Compass nesting module calculates how these panels are to be cut. Rectangular blanks for the stringers and treads are now also ready in front of the CNC. Usually, one rectangle contains two trapezoidal, opposingly rotated treads.

Andreas now only needs to process one position after the other. He calls up the program for a stair tread, positions the consoles and vacuum pods with screen and laser support, and places the blank on them. Using a pencil, he roughly traces the laser projection of the tread contour and, before running the program, pre-cuts the tread on the bandsaw. He comments: "I could skip this step, but it saves the machine a lot of cutting work, so the overall process is faster." Andreas Gurol founded his company, Schreinerei Neuenburger Holzwerkstätten Gurol (NHG), in 2013 in Zetel-Neuenburg, Friesland, and specializes in solid wood, especially stairs.

50 handcrafted stairs per year

With six employees, he produces around 50 stairs annually. In 2017, he decided to replace the old 4-axis CNC, which had a table that was far too short, with a modern 5-axis machine.

Carsten Ross from Felder, who visits regularly, developed a machine configuration for the longest Profit H350 with a laser assistant for the vacuum pods and a projector for the workpiece contour. This corresponded exactly to the workflow Andreas Gurol wanted. Then everything happened quickly: Felder/Format4 delivered the machine, and Compass and the laser projection specialist Z-Laser helped to get everything up and running. A week of training at the Felder branch in Greven, Westphalia, followed. Since then, the machine has been running without any major malfunctions or downtimes.